Thank you for joining our joyful celebration:). It is a wonderful community in all senses of the word isn't it? Thanks and much love accepted and returned:). Cheers and yours in fellowship. ''What connects Nature to the spiritual, or requires the presence of the latter? In positive terms, as Alkis Kontos points out, when nature was still largely experienced as integral, alive and active, 'It was the spiritual dimension of the world, its enchanted, magical quality that rendered it infinite, not amenable to complete calculability; spirit could not be quanified; it permitted and invited mythologization.' And I would add, it still is and does.'' Patrick Curry-Defending Middle-Earth-Tolkien: Myth and Modernity - chapter: 'The Sea: Spirituality and Ethics.'

May the grace of ManwŰ let us soar with eagle's wings! In the air, among the clouds in the sky Here is where the birds of Manwe fly Looking at the land, and the water that flows The true beauty of earth shows With the stars of Varda lighting my way In all the realms this is where I stay In the realm of ManwŰ S˙limo

Pencil is of course very good for sketching, but to develop a pencil sketch to the point where I'd call it a finished artwork takes quite some time. Far quicker is watercolour. I recently taught a painting workshop in which I did three complete paintings in a short time - only possible because I was using watercolour. So I guess watercolour is my favoured medium - it's fast, and used properly can be quite dramatic. (I can upload small images of a couple of those paintings in one of these posts, if you like, if I can figure out how - I'm a newbie at this posting business... ;-)

Having said that, I was working on some advertising artwork yesterday, using acrylic, and got a great result resonably quickly.

And for sketching, one shouldn't overlook charcoal - this can be very expressive, and because there's no colour involved, it's necessary to make the most of light and shade, tone. Great discipline!

As for another Red Carpet Sketching Tour, I'd LOVE to do one - it was EXCELLENT! It's on the horizon - we're just figuring out whether to try an Autumn one instead of Spring. Come along!

Thanks for the compliment! I've been painting in acrylic for the last few days - it's artwork for an advertisement - and it's been good to explore that medium a bit more. I can't "let it out of the box" yet, until the ad campaign is up and running, but I'll put it up on my website when I can.

Landscapes... hmmmm, they look great painted, SHOULD be painted - and I do them now and again, when something really grabs my attention. Some dramatic lighting or whatever. But I have a number of other images in my head that are insisting on being painted first, and also a calligraphy exhibition coming up in August. These things, plus the need to do commercial jobs to pay the bills, keep my painting output frustratingly slow.

But I'll get there. I have a series of oil paintings in mind (some more NZ wildlife, and one from Maori legend), and also another large watercolour of a wellington scene. Can't wait to get started!

"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?" -Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915

"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?" -Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915

I've been wanting to get them for a while, and snapped them up as soon as I learned they were available again. I also meant to drop you a message that it was me, but I have the same problem as Barliman ;).

Can I put in a plug for a Red Carpet sketching tour for autumn 2010? (That would be March/April 2010). Some of us are kicking around the idea of visiting NZ around that time, and I would definitely love to do the sketching tour. Although I have zero talent, every tour needs someone who admires everyone's work....

As part of the map conspiracy, I was really touched by all your generosity towards that project. And then again for The Valaquenta of TORn (I don't know if that's been posted on the message boards here at all). I wanted to thank you for contributions.

Back during the map thing, I visited your site and feel in love with the onion painting.

I would love to look over your shoulder while you work, especially on the maps. What kind of paper do you use when you do a map?

Yep, an Autumn Sketching Tour would be great - and I think that's the way the organisers are leaning. Otago (in NZ's South Island) is incredibly beautiful at that time of year, so I'd love to go back and paint then. I'll pass on your plug to Vic and Raewyn - and I look forward to seeing you on the Tour!

And the Valaquenta - what a GREAT interpretation AlassŰa Eruvande has written with this! Wow! I only played a small, making a nice visual effect for it with the parchment and font, but I think the piece itself is the real gem. My Tolkien-geekiness was showing through, in that I could easily have re-inserted all the Tolkien names into the text, having read The Silmarillion so many times, even though the last time was quite a few years ago.

I can imagine that things will be hotting up for you and your work, as production on The Hobbit gets further along!

Having the opportunity to turn a hobby into a full-time profession would be a dream come true! Did you find that it changed your everyday life very much?

(p.s. love your map of Cape Cod!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I desired dragons with a profound desire"

"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?" -Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915

Hello all! I'm Alicia; I've visited TORn many times, but only now joined the message boards to say Congratulations!! Read through all of the messages on this thread... how nice to see all of the lovely people & comments! Everyone keep up the great work! As for the next Sketching Tour... I want to go so badly I can taste it!! Don't know when I'll get back to NZ, but I will, and permanently this time. In the meantime, I just bought a sketchpad & pencils today, & have done 2 truly awful sketches. Daniel - help! -Alicia allywag67@aol.comwww.thewagband.com

That greeting is a blast, two lion hearts truly. Hey, it so neat that you all popped over to celebrate with us on our 10th. It is a good time to see Fantasy alive and well. Cheers! ''What connects Nature to the spiritual, or requires the presence of the latter? In positive terms, as Alkis Kontos points out, when nature was still largely experienced as integral, alive and active, 'It was the spiritual dimension of the world, its enchanted, magical quality that rendered it infinite, not amenable to complete calculability; spirit could not be quanified; it permitted and invited mythologization.' And I would add, it still is and does.'' Patrick Curry-Defending Middle-Earth-Tolkien: Myth and Modernity - chapter: 'The Sea: Spirituality and Ethics.'

May the grace of ManwŰ let us soar with eagle's wings! In the air, among the clouds in the sky Here is where the birds of Manwe fly Looking at the land, and the water that flows The true beauty of earth shows With the stars of Varda lighting my way In all the realms this is where I stay In the realm of ManwŰ S˙limo

I use good quality watercolour paper for most of my maps. Mostly Fabriano Artistico EW, Cold Pressed. Though I may switch to Arches - I've just bought a load of it, because it can take a lot of wetting and re-wetting, without losing it's crispness.

Having said that, the map which Bilbo is folding up in the FOTR prologue was done on brown wrapping paper! It was nice and brown and crinkly and easily foldable - but probably an archivist's nightmare!

And thanks for your comments about the onion painting. I loved doing that, and I'm looking forward to doing some more oils like it. I did several quickish studies first, trying the methods of various different Old Masters, and eventually settled on a technique which uses quite a lot of medium as a vehicle for the pigment, especially in the early and background layers. I'll try to attach an image of some progress shots of this painting below...

The easiest way to post a pic is to upload it from your hard drive. (Edited to add: I see you're already a pro at it, so disregard what's below unless you're in to reading dry instructions.)

When you're writing a post, there's an area to upload attachments at the bottom, which includes pictures:

- With your cusor in the "Browse" box, find the pic and double click on it to get it into the "Browse" box. - Click on the "Inline" box next to the "Upload attachment" button - click the "Upload attachment" button. - do this for every pic you want to attach. - put your cursor in your post where you want the pic to show up

Then, in the upper right there's an icon that looks like a picture of a mountain. Click on it, select "Inline attachment" then selct your pics. Repeat to imbed more pics.

FYI, for asthetic reasons and for those who might have slow connections, our picture posting guidelines are below. I can't wait to see what you select.

Quote

the maximum size of any picture posted should be 525 wide x 400 pixels high (or a better measure is: 210,000 pixels squared - width x height), but no wider than 670 pixels. The maximum file size per picture should be 50k. The cumulative file size of all pictures in one post should not exceed 250k (5 pictures of the maximum filesize of 50k, 10 pictures of a filesize of 25k, etc.).